rebirth
by Prelude in Indigo
Summary: Nagi is dead, and Chrome is alive. And she waits and waits for her to come back to life.


**Yo! It's Anna-chan... even though no one knows me in this fandom... *crawls into a corner of depression*  
>My first Katekyo Hitman Reborn fic! And it just <em>had<em> to be this... I had two ideas I really wanted to do: One was sort of a recounting of Gokudera's life, and this was the other one. Chrome. It's nowhere near as good as it was in my head, but (I hope) it'll do...**

**Haha, funny thing about Chrome. (Don't think I'm being mean when I say this...) I like her character. I love her backstory and I love her cuteness and her shyness and all that... but her personality gets on my nerves... *prepares to be hit* But I like her, so here we have this _lovely_ ficlet.**

**I hope it gives new portrayal of Chrome's personality- I believe that she has doubts about her new life: she's already shown that she feels inferior to people like Kyoko or Haru or I-Pin or Chisuka... or even Ken... We know that she adores Mukuro, but does she believe that he cares for her as anything more than a vessel?**

**Whatever. I'm not suited to lengthy heartfelt explanations... haha. Enjoy!**

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><p><strong>:|~*~|:<strong>

drowning in the looking glass  
>my fears of life and love arise<br>tell me that it'll all be alright  
>that I'm still here<br>I'm still alive  
>tell me, tell me, beautiful lies<br>(I am not here, I am not alive)

**:|~*~|:**

_It was an unusual thing to do, they said. Picking up cats like that. Picking up strays. It was childish and illogical, because there would always be rejects, as long as there were humans. They said that it would stop, the sooner the better. And it did._

If Chrome were to be asked, which she never was, she would have said that her life didn't begin until rebirth. She liked literature and she liked symbolism, and she especially liked the stories of death and rebirth. If asked, she would have said that her own personal story was that of death and rebirth into new life.

But no one ever bothered to ask.

_She believed that they were happy to be rid of her. She was right. Nagi was an annoyance; a bother. Loved by no one; no one would save her. Nagi would die as Nagi lived, alone._

Chrome Dokuro didn't believe it when they said that they loved her. They all said it- that she was one of them and that they liked her, and maybe even needed her. A new life didn't mean that Chrome wasn't Nagi anymore. Someone who was impossible to love in one life was impossible to love in another.

It didn't mean that she didn't love them, and it didn't mean she wished they loved her.

_Sometimes Nagi wished that she wasn't Nagi. She wished that she was strong, the sort of girl who wouldn't be forgotten, she wished that she was someone else. These were the thoughts that filled her mind as she lay in her hospital bed, dying. Dying with missing organs, dying because she'd saved a cat. She wondered if it was okay._

In her mind, that was when Nagi died. That was when she _should_ have died. That was when she was given up on.

It was also when Chrome Dokuro was born. (Kuromu Dokuro.) _He _said that it meant that he claimed her. That he saved her. That he and she were one in the same, inseparable even by death. (As much hers as his.) Chrome wanted to believe him.

_In the back of her mind, Nagi lived on, an earlier reincarnation of a different person. Fate was a cruel mistress, and didn't relinquish her grasp so easily. _Impossible to forget_, the girl whispered, _impossible to love. _Nagi was dead, but Chrome was alive_.

She wanted Mukuro Rokudo to love her. Chrome loved him and needed him, and wanted him to need her; and sometimes, sometimes, she could even fool herself. She knew that he would never need her and that the day was not long coming-

_-in which Nagi would come back to life-_

-and Chrome would die, but as long as she felt needed and she felt loved, then Chrome would remain.

Chrome would remain, as merely a reflection of whatever the world wanted to see, an unnecessary life clad in deceptive chromium paint. She would fulfill their needs and then she would fade away, still waiting for someone to tell her the truth.

_That Nagi was not dead. That Nagi was Chrome, and Chrome had been deceiving herself all along. That she was not loved, and she was not alive._

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><p><strong>Wow, this is depressing. I worry about myself sometimes. Kuromu Dokuro- an anagram of Mukuro Rokudo, which I'm sure most of you caught. (It's the way Chrome is pronounced in Japanese.)<strong>

**Does this even make sense? It does to me, but then again, not much in my own mind makes sense to those outside it. ^^**

**Ah, well. A note about the use of the word 'love:' Mukuro and Chrome are a lovely couple. They are deeply in love and should therefore get married and all that great stuff. But in the fic, the use of the word love is (sadly enough) not that of a romantic nature. Take it as such if you wish, if you don't... THEN DON'T GET ON MY EFFING CASE.**

**Hope you enjoyed! :D Review so that Daemon will stop perving on poor innocent Chrome!**


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